“Other economists like it too. Adam Smith said “nothing could be more reasonable”; Milton Friedman termed it “the least bad tax”. Winston Churchill said scornfully that a landlord “contributes nothing to the process from which his own enrichment is derived”. The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development, a Paris-based thinktank for industrialised countries, supports the idea. So too did a recent working paper by the International Monetary Fund and the Mirrlees Review of British taxation by the Institute of Fiscal Studies. ”

“His best-known follower was Henry George, perhaps the only tax theorist in history whose beliefs have become the object of almost cult-like devotion. One of his fans invented the game now known as Monopoly, to exemplify the evils of untaxed rent. In a book called “Progress and Poverty”, published in 1879, George argued that land-value levies should replace all other taxation, leaving labour and capital to flourish freely, and thus ending unemployment, poverty, inflation and inequality.”

“ David Ricardo termed unearned income from land as a pernicious anomaly: “that portion of the produce of the earth which is paid to the landlord for the use of the original and indestructible powers of the soil”.”

“Chinese Buyers:

Berends, the Oakville homeowner, has placed ads in several Chinese media outlets in hopes of attracting foreign shoppers. “Apparently there are still buyers in mainland China, but they’re not really jumping,” she said.

She’s hoping to retire to a home she’s building north of the city in a few years, but she’s waiting for the right price for her existing house.

“I’m thinking we might have to take it off and wait till next year,” she said. “It’s just so difficult to know.”

“A $3M purchase now requires a foreign buyer to cough up $668,000 in taxes upon closing. ”

“Further, it appears BC has also been relatively successful in it’s ability to curb funny money entering BC casinos and local Real Estate. Eby noted suspicious transactions to B.C. casinos had fallen to $200,000 in February, down from a high of $20 million in July 2015.

“We have reduced it by a factor of 100,” said Eby, who has also requested national aide in it’s attempt to curb illicit money diluting the property market.”

By the way, every sane economist in the world will agree that a land tax is the most efficient way to raise government revenue. Not distortive and hard to evade, while effective in reducing land speculation and hoarding).

It forces people to use land efficiently.

There are a variety of lots left empty for clearly speculative purposes (see for example the land plot at Alma and 10th owned by a company based in Vancouver called Landa Global, or the lot at Burrard and Davie).

These guys buy land and leave it empty (or give it to people for community gardens to score brownie points) waiting for its value to skyrocket. Same with many land assemblies.

It is crucial that the tax is kept (and even made harsher) on undeveloped land: this will force them to develop it rather than sitting on it.,

“Since a 2015 exposé in The New York Times about “hidden global wealth” pouring into Manhattan’s most elite condo buildings, there has been some attention on a “growing proportion” of wealthy foreigners, who have been the subject of government inquiries in their home countries for cases involving white-collar housing or environmental violations and financial fraud, buying assets in North America with few questions asked.”

“Now, the visual of what is being suggested by the Chinese government’s allegations against Wu and Anbang should be a wake-up call, according to Alesia Nahirny, executive director of Transparency International Canada.

Nahirny says she wouldn’t categorize Anbang’s funds as necessarily being illicit. That’s normally a description reserved for money that is tied to nefarious and organized crime, but she says it’s a problem if Anbang has been diverting funds into deals in Canada that it raised by aggressively promoting risky wealth-management products to unsophisticated investors in China.

“(Money from) practices that happen elsewhere is coming to us. We are connected to it. If we are not putting the proper measures in place, we are complicit,” says Nahirny.”

““It’s so interesting,” says Christine Duhaime, a Vancouver-based lawyer. “Goodness knows what it means for the Vancouver assets other than there will be a fire sale to get rid of them.”

She’s been watching Anbang’s activities in Vancouver since it first got the green light from the federal government in 2016 to buy the Bentall Centre office towers and retail mall in two transactions for over $1 billion, even though it wasn’t clear how Ottawa was able to tick off basic ownership questions about Anbang when no one else in the world could.”

“China says the former chairman of Beijing-based Anbang Insurance Group defrauded mom-and-pop retail investors of more than US$10 billion and the company used that money to buy trophy assets overseas, including prime office towers in downtown Vancouver and a major B.C. seniors’ care company.”

The other side yelled louder and they got the spec tax rescinded.

Keep up the good work here on this blog.

I loved this one! A 6 million profit for holding empty for two years.

1896 WESBROOK CRES VANCOUVER
02-May-2015 $6,100,000
Listed for $11,780,000

Definitely a local binging on credit, right? China money plays no role, or so we are told by some…..

What policy did they enact?

Nothing.

Ditto.

This takes the cherry:

“We spend money on food, restaurants, entertainment, we bring up friends. There is a large contribution to the Canadian economy,” he said.”

So, if someone buys a lot of stuff we should forego taxes on them? Is this the principle on which our society is built?

They would be able to avoid the tax by putting the property in the name of their child. But I suspect that would not be tax efficient for other reasons.

I have zero sympathy for these guys. In my eyes, they are as Bas speculators as the mainland Chinese. They are all trying to make easy money on the back of people who live, work and pay taxes over here.